Rittenhouse: The 'Media Accountability' Project

[TheEncogitationerParticipant]

Davis,

It is really interesting and extremely telling Enco that the only time you seem to have any emotional response to “hate crime” it when it is very likely false. Your outrage about that is, in this case, probably just and calling out fake hate crimes makes people taking real hate crimes all the more difficult.

I rarely comment or have emotional response on any ongoing news story unless the facts on either a part or all of the story become settled. Even then, my comments and response are on the portions that are settled,

It is settled now that Kyle Rittenhouse acted in self-defense and that his acts were not racist and that media did a shit job reporting on it, so that’s what I’m going on in my response.

But from virtually everything you’ve said so far, you seem relatively indifferent or even hostile to the very idea of hate crimes as a serious problem, and I even get the feeling you see most of them as overblown and not as big of a problem as it really is.

Crime is a problem and a growing problem nationwide in the past two years, whatever the specific motive. But hatred for immutable traits is just one motive of many.

I always find it curious when I read people online who don’t bat an eye over cases of hate speech, vaguely downplay its significance, deny how wide spread it is or worse ask people to just “brush it off” as “free speech is absolute” and yet get utterly enraged at the hurt that a fake claim of hate speech can cause its victim. That is: little reaction over the mountain of cases of undeniable harm that uncontrolled hate speech causes…and extremely outrage over the very few cases of fake claims and the harm that causes. If you ever need a sign of just how very very little progress has been made and how much more progress awaits us (if it ever comes)…such attitudes illustrate it all too well.

There are not few cases of hate crime hoaxes. Researcher of political fanaticism Laird Wilcox wrote an entire study on hate crime hoaxes published by Prometheus Books called Crying Wolf. There is now more literature on the subject of hate crime hoaxes and a Web Site expanding upon Laird Wilcox’ work with a continuous feed of news stories about hate crime hoaxes,

Fake Hate Crimes: A Database of Hate Crime Hoaxes in the U.S.A.
https://www.fakehatecrimes.org/

And there is yet another:

HoaxHateCrimes.com: Where The Demand For Hate Crimes Outweighs The Supply

Main Home

When a mind encounters enough of a pattern of hoaxes, it is quite natural and rational to give pause and wait for all facts to come in before jumping on a bandwagon to condemn the wrong person.

It is also quite natural and rational to question why one motive for a crime should have special consideration over other evil motives for crime under the law.

And it is especially natural and rational to question hate crime claims and hate crime legislation in the cases of cities like Chicago, where the sheer number of murders of all motives is staggering and growing by the day and even the hour, many of which never get solved:

Homicides in Chicago: a list of every victim
Graphics by Jesse Howe and Andy Boyle
https://graphics.suntimes.com/homicides/

[UnseenParticipant]

Autumn wrote:

I wasn’t really planning on on standing trial for criminal matters any time soon. That said, a philosophical position that ‘good’ and ‘evil’ don’t exist per se might not impress a judge in a defence of mental disorder.

Judges just weigh behavior against the language in the law along, related precedents, etc. Juries just try to follow the judge’s instructions. Good and evil may creep in in terms of determining sentencing because that’s less about “just the facts” and gets into how terrible the crime was.

[TheEncogitationerParticipant]

Jake,

Encotunes,

Fake hate crime hoaxes are not under first amendment umbrella?

Is that what you are saying? If so what happened to your unsophisticated blanket view? Is it because the content is offensive to you?

Yep! That’s exactly what I’m saying and my view was never “unsophisticated” or “blanket.”

And “offense” has nothing to do with it. Everyone has a right to their own opinion, but no one has a right to their own facts.

A justice system based upon objective truth–you know, that stuff that’s still there both when you’re asleep and when wou’re awake, the stuff that’s still there when you turn your head one way then another–and upon evidence discovered by the senses and technological extenders of the senses and organized by Reason–is all kind of a big deal.

Without such a system, there are no rights or no justice upheld for anyone.

Jussie Smollett tried to shot-cut that system with his “hate crime” hoax and he got cut short.

Good, though sadly, he still doen’t have to serve time among the general population of hardened criminals who might not give a damn about his grandstanding and who may need their laundry done.

In any event, now the justice system can go after real crimes with real victims.

[—Participant]

TheEncogitationer wrote:

Davis,

It is really interesting and extremely telling Enco that the only time you seem to have any emotional response to “hate crime” it when it is very likely false. Your outrage about that is, in this case, probably just and calling out fake hate crimes makes people taking real hate crimes all the more difficult.

I rarely comment or have emotional response on any ongoing news story unless the facts on either a part or all of the story become settled. Even then, my comments and response are on the portions that are settled, It is settled now that Kyle Rittenhouse…

I believe the comment you quoted was in reference to your comments on Smollet, not Rittenhouse.

…acted in self-defense and that his acts…

Yes. Philosophically, I think that’s a load of shit; however, the system is what it is and factually, his acts were legally self-defence.

…were not racist…

I don’t know that that’s settled.

…and that media did a shit job reporting on it, so that’s what I’m going on in my response.

I’m sure we can find outlets that were either rushing to lynch Kyle or desperate to suck him off, but on balance? Again, hard-pressed to call that settled.

But from virtually everything you’ve said so far, you seem relatively indifferent or even hostile to the very idea of hate crimes as a serious problem, and I even get the feeling you see most of them as overblown and not as big of a problem as it really is.

Fake Hate Crimes: A Database of Hate Crime Hoaxes in the U.S.A. https://www.fakehatecrimes.org/ And there is yet another: HoaxHateCrimes.com: Where The Demand For Hate Crimes Outweighs The Supply

Wow, that site is a mess. It shows some 400 cases across more than four decades, mostly focused on the US with some from other countries. However, a number of the listings don’t involve any reported hate crime (e.g. one is just a facebook post with faulty information). Quite a few fall under ‘suspected’ hoax either due to inadequate evidence or the police didn’t believe the claim. One of the listings is just Lorem ipsum.

For context, from just 2015-2019 alone there were 34,000 bias motivated incidents reported to the FBI in the united states.

There are many unknowns. Of cases reported to the FBI, it’s unknown how many were legitimate and of those how many constituted actual hate crimes (as opposed to those that reasonably appeared to be hate crimes). It’s unknown how many incidents have gone unreported. It’s unknown how many of the ‘suspected’ hoaxes on http://www.fakehatecrimes.org are actually fake and how many simply didn’t have the necessary evidence (which is sadly the case with many crimes).

What can be said is that http://www.fakehatecrimes.org doesn’t present a compelling case that fake claims rise above the level of ‘fairly few’.

[jakelafortParticipant]

Enco i am surprised you affirmed and doubled down on that stance.

In the past you advocated blanket wholesale balls to the wall unabridged don’t tread on my ass FREE MUTHA FUCKIN SPEECH, BITCH!

You’ve carved a loony toons exception for fake hate crimes. You say not because it is offensive to me but no one has a right to their own facts. Does that mean you would deny speech protection wherever it is inaccurate or only when it is offensive to your libertarian sensibilities? Not your own facts posture would curtail speech to such an extent as to render the first amendment eviscerated or greatly weakened.

Also consider the paradox. You would protect under amendment 1 the following speech: My name is Frank Da Fucqua and my mission is to cleanse the USA of Niggers, Kikes and faggots. We all know the Kikes control the media and the banks and Hitler never finished the job. A final solution is within our reach! The bible teaches that Niggers are good slaves and Ho’s with fat asses good to rape but we have had enough of their monkey business-they are monkeys! And faggots? Well the bible tells us they are unnatural and must be punished. Come to our Jews will not replace us march and receive information how you can help make america great again and cleanse our great nation of Kikes, Niggers and Faggots.

On the other hand the following speech would have no first amendment protection: An actor feigns injury and decries his confederate who attacks him without intent to injure; instead with intent to appear to intend to cause injury and spews racial invectives as he is pretending to whale on his friend ” You faggot mutha fucka I will kill your ass. You tried to grab my ass you filthy fag bastard.”

In the first hypothetical you have permitted under first amendment a speaker to utter hate speech intended to gather support that might lead to hate crimes and contributes to many people feeling unsafe in their own country and neighborhood simply by virtue of their birth and a history replete with victims of not empty threats. In the second hypothetical you will not allow a speaker to feign a violent interaction and utter hate speech. So your hatred and bad intentions have to be authentic to be protected! Holy fuck that is a screwed up position.

BTW if you have read that Being You book or the article describing it you might think twice about our objective reality.

[DavisModerator]

Everyone has a right to their own opinion, but no one has a right to their own facts

Oh my dear lord what a bloody rabbit hole we have here. As though gay people shouldn’t be protected from the “fact” that they are all podophiles trying to turn children gay and will definitely burn in hell and that all black people are all criminals living on welfare cheating the system. These kind of statements are undeniably harmful AND are undeniably false and yet you don’t seem to have the slightest inkling to support any laws that even slightly impose consequences on saying such shit. Yet some white dudes get (unfairly) accused of a fake hate crime and they should be entitled to the real facts and Smollet pay consequences. Your double standard is sad, to put it mildly.

For the record: I think it extremely likely Smollet made up the story to boost his career and have NO problem with him serving time if that is the case. What he did makes it all the more harder for the MANY victims of hate crimes to find justice. I am horrified by what he did.

I also see NO difference between the harm caused towards the two who staged the crime and harm against society (whatever that means and keep in mind the two committed crimes themselves in faking a crime) and the undeniable harm that “anything goes hate speech” causes marginalised people. I mean I keep repeating this shit but all the hate-speech and bullying has led to a situation where not a single of the (by statistics) thousands of gay atheletes in top tier professional sports leagues in the West is out of the closet. The only possible explanation for this figure (zero out of closet and all who dare have a relationship hide it in fear from everyone) is because of hate speech and bullying. And that is just the athletes, no to mention minorities regularly discriminated against.

It seems that you just don’t give a shit about the harm that hate speech causes vulnerable people or just deny it is the case because it doesn’t gel with your idea that seriously biggotry has gone away in America or that victims just exaggerate the harm it causes them. Either way, pfff. As Jake said…you have an extremely selective idea of what “free speech” means and accept limits to it that suit your world view and are offended by limits that create cognitive conflict. You also seemed to have done a quick google search to find a list of fake hate crimes and posted an absurdly dubious source, which even if true (which that list is not fully) pales in comparison to the numbers of hate crimes (which you didn’t bother to check). When you search for shit to confirm your world view and avoid easily found data that would conflict it…it is telling of your intellectual integrity.

• This reply was modified 2 years, 11 months ago by  Davis.
• This reply was modified 2 years, 11 months ago by  Davis.

[TheEncogitationerParticipant]

Unseen,

When you grab a military-style gun and head out the door to go to a protest already being supervised by the police, what does that say about your concept of right and wrong? How do you rationalize that going there with a lethal weapon is the right use of your time?

It is foolhardy to run towards gunfire. The few investigative journalsts who exist do it all the time and so I hear last night, one from the U.S. got killed and another got injured in Ukraine.

Zelensky Mourns Death of Brett Renaud, U.S. Journalist Killed in Ukraine
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/zelensky-mourns-death-of-brent-renaud-us-journalist-killed-in-ukraine/ar-AAV2IuE

FOX News Journalist Injured In Ukraine

Fox News journalist injured in Ukraine

However, if running towards gunfire is done to either report or correct a wrong, then you can’t really call it insane.

And if the elements of what happens next don’t fit the elements of murder or racism, then you can’t really call it murder or racism.

And all the Ossifer Friendlies clearly did not have the situation in hand. Remember the saying: ” When seconds count, the police are minutes away.”

[UnseenParticipant]

TheEncogitationer wrote:

if running towards gunfire is done to either report or correct a wrong, then you can’t really call it insane.

You seem to think that there’s some sort of necessary connection between sanity and having a sense of right and wrong. What theory are you invoking to support the notion that amoral people are insane?

[DavisModerator]

What theory are you invoking to support the notion that amoral people are insane?

Indeed. Every day millions of teenagers bully other teenagers and make other people’s lives miserable creating terrible harm for them for the tiniest short-term personal benefit (if any). Are they all crazy? Humans are fundamentally flawed. Otherwise good people can do outrageous harm. In exceptional circumstances, outstanding praiseworthy people do crazy messed up shit. Few recognise what they have done or admit how they failed. Even educated well developed mentally healthy person being fully versed in moral theory and dedicating their life to their own principles doesn’t make them immune to even daily screw-ups.

• This reply was modified 2 years, 11 months ago by  Davis.

[Belle RoseParticipant]

We all know the only reason he can do this is because he’s white. White male privilege at its finest 😂  If he was black???…..or Hispanic??…..etc….

[UnseenParticipant]

Belle Rose wrote:

We all know the only reason he can do this is because he’s white. White male privilege at its finest 😂 If he was black???…..or Hispanic??…..etc….

Exactly

[TheEncogitationerParticipant]

Jake,

I meant to add in my last post that neither false accusers nor journalists nor anyone else has a right to their own facts. So this is no special pleading cut-out for Kyle Rittenhouse or anyone else.

Kyle Rittenhouse has said in interviews subsequent to his trial that he supports the Black Lives Matter movement. If he wants to defend that movement even after the grift that it has committed and the violence it has supported, then Kyle Rittenhouse has no right to his own facts either.

In reference to your hypotheticals, the principle is the same with both. A person can hold and express any sentiments they want about anybody, but if they threaten or incite violence, engage in fraud, or make false accusations directed at specific individuals, then the law has to come down on them. All legitimate individual rights have to exist non-contradictory of all other individual rights. It’s not hard.

By the way, a commercial nowadays might ask: “Are you using more Tourette’s meds lately…but enjoying them less?”

I’m not a Doctor, nor do I play one on TV, but could it be somehing you may want to ask yourself, in consultation with someone possessing a relevant sheepskin and medical practice? Just asking…

As to this book you cite Being You, it sounds like you’ve got a solution to hate and crime and indeed all problems over there in “Strawberry Fields.”. I mean, if “nothing is real” then there’s “nothing to get hung about”…right?

🍓🍓🍓🍓🍓🍓🍓🍓🍓🍓

As for me and my pod, I respect objective reality and it does me good in return. Now excuse me while I get back to enjoying my my peanut butter and “cranberry sauce” sammich while I lean on my gravedigger’s shovel.

🥜 🍒 🥪 😎

• This reply was modified 2 years, 11 months ago by  TheEncogitationer. Reason: Addition of the word "exist," a word that evidently means nothing nowadays

[TheEncogitationerParticipant]

Davis,

Oh my dear lord what a bloody rabbit hole we have here. As though gay people shouldn’t be protected from the “fact” that they are all podophiles trying to turn children gay and will definitely burn in hell and that all black people are all criminals living on welfare cheating the system.

Obviously, those are not objective facts and anyone who expresses those statements is epistemologically-challenged. Back in my day, we had a term for them:

These kind of statements are undeniably harmful AND are undeniably false and yet you don’t seem to have the slightest inkling to support any laws that even slightly impose consequences on saying such shit. Yet some white dudes get (unfairly) accused of a fake hate crime and they should be entitled to the real facts and Smollet pay consequences. Your double standard is sad, to put it mildly.

There is no double standard here. Libel, slander, defamation, false accustaions, and threats of violence have to be directed by specific individuals against specific individuals before they are actionable.

Some Hyde Park Speaker’s Corner lunatic shouting stereotypes about amorphous groups is equivalent to an old man shouting at a cloud.

If he makes his accusations or directs his threats to a specific individual, then he either has to prove the accusations or pay the consequence of either a civil settlement in the case of libel, slander, or defamation, or a fine and imprisonment in the case of false criminal accusation or threats of violence, and maybe a civil settlement on top of fines and imprisonment.

Again, no double standard.

I mean I keep repeating this shit but all the hate-speech and bullying has led to a situation where not a single of the (by statistics) thousands of gay atheletes in top tier professional sports leagues in the West is out of the closet. The only possible explanation for this figure (zero out of closet and all who dare have a relationship hide it in fear from everyone) is because of hate speech and bullying. And that is just the athletes, no to mention minorities regularly discriminated against.

What you said about out Gays in sports is simply not true. The NFL’s Carl Nassib has come out as Gay and others in the League have followed him:

Meet the 16 out gay and bi football players in the NFL’s 102-year history
Carl Nassib will become the first to ever play a down as openly gay, but the rest are still trailblazers.

By Jim Buzinski Updated Sep 9, 2021, 7:10am PDT
https://www.outsports.com/2019/9/5/20850457/nfl-history-gay-bi-players

Also, the whole Site of OutSports is filled with College, National, and Olympic athletes in all kinds of sports who are out LGBTQ+ individuals. More needs to be done towards acceptance of LGBTQ+ people, of course, but the momentum is set and is not about to stop.

Please try to keep up. Otherwise, the Sanford Dummy Reel might apply to you.

• This reply was modified 2 years, 11 months ago by  TheEncogitationer. Reason: Spelling and addendum for clarity
• This reply was modified 2 years, 11 months ago by  TheEncogitationer. Reason: More addendum for clarity

[TheEncogitationerParticipant]

Unseen,

You seem to think that there’s some sort of necessary connection between sanity and having a sense of right and wrong. What theory are you invoking to support the notion that amoral people are insane?

It’s the long-standing legal definition of sanity and insanity, whether a person is capable of knowing right from wrong.

[—Participant]

TheEncogitationer wrote:

There is no double standard here. Libel, slander, defamation, false accustaions, and threats of violence have to be directed by specific individuals against specific individuals before they are actionable.

That is the status quo in many jurisdictions. That doesn’t mean it is rationally so. Part of why Canada has the Hate Propaganda statutes it does is due specifically to Holocaust denial and antisemitism. Because the Holocaust was still very much in living memory, it served as a testament to what harm propaganda vilifying entire peoples (as opposed to individuals) can do. While they aren’t a perfect analogue, the Hate Propaganda statutes operate very much like defamation law only applied to so-called identifiable groups.

Some Hyde Park Speaker’s Corner lunatic shouting stereotypes about amorphous groups is equivalent to an old man shouting at a cloud.

As someone who as received threats and abuse on the backs of these sorts of propaganda campaigns, I can say you’re being naïve. Fortunately the threats, in my case, are what I believe to be people talking shit rather than credible threats; however, this ‘old man shouting at cloud’ example isn’t really what we’re concerned about.

I don’t have documentation of any of the statements directed at me, specifically, any more, but the other day I came across an example of a statement made by someone in my community. Again, talking shit, but also again, not an ‘old man shouting at clouds’ sort of scenario fuelling this nonsense:

[Author]

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